The latest on California politics and government

April 18, 2013

One remarkable thing about Gov. Jerry Brown's trip to China this past week is that, for a governor who can be difficult to keep organized and on schedule, it was largely a logistical success.

That is with one minor exception: getting Mike Rossi to dinner at Duck de Chine.

One night last week, Brown was dining at the Beijing restaurant when a text went out that he was looking for Rossi, his unpaid senior jobs adviser.

Rossi - "My man, Rossi," occasionally, in the governor's vernacular - was miles across town, his six-foot-two, 210-pound frame sandwiched between two reporters in the back seat of a cab. A mix-up had sent Rossi and several other members of Brown's trade mission in a bus from the U.S. embassy to the wrong restaurant, a second, considerably less famous Duck de Chine.

Back at the hotel, Rossi's deputy, Brook Taylor, thought they still could catch up to Brown.

"It's 10 after 8, it takes 20 minutes to get there," Taylor said. "Yeah, we should go."

Rossi ordered a car, and he and Taylor piled in. Twenty minutes later, the scenery began to look familiar and they pulled out a map. The driver glanced at it and nodded confidently, though the map was upside down.

Once more, Rossi had been delivered to the same, wrong Duck de Chine. The driver's cell phone rang, emitting an otherworldly sound, and the 69-year-old former bank executive started laughing.